The UCL Union Council Meeting yesterday was a big, contentious one, with six motions tabled for discussion. The most important of these, as far as Rare FM was concerned, was a motion urging for ‘Vibrant Media Societies’, which resolved to fully-fund Rare FM’s RSL license, and to seek a sabbatical editor for Pi Magazine, which would no longer be a society.
I, along with Pi Magazine, disagreed with the parts relating to Pi Magazine, as such a motion would leave Pi Magazine disaffiliated, with no guaranteed sabbatical editor or future status (such a change would have required a Special Resolution). Whilst there is currently an issue of the editorial control of Pi (it’s jointly edited by the Union Media Officer and a student editor), I don’t think that it needs a full-time editor – it’d be better to simply make the student editor the only editor.
So, I submitted an amendment which changed the parts relating to Pi, brought in some extra facts to back up Rare FM’s case for funding, and brought in an extra clause to guarantee some money for the ‘Media Fund’ for next year (to be spent on the TV studio).
The first motion, dubbed ‘the big societies motion’, aimed to allow clubs and societies easy lives by allowing them to have bank accounts, to sell their own memberships, and to put up their own publicity on unlocked display boards. There was some good stuff in this motion, and it was backed up with examples of where these things had been done successfully in other unis, but most of the Exec were against on the grounds of ‘needing an audit trail’ and preventing unauthorised posting of notices on display boards. The motion subsequently FELL, with some of the proposers consequently walking out.
The first motion, which resolved to congratulate the LGB society on their 30th anniversary and allocate £200 for celebrations, was NOT PUT following a narrowly successful procedural motion, and was instead DEFERED to Campaigns Committee. This seemed a bit ridiculous, and I didn’t see why we should just vote on it there and then.
The third motion, ‘bringing the union online’, mandated the union to improve their website, to set-up an e-mail list facility, to publish the minutes of all meetings, to set up a secure shop which would be able to sell club/society memberships, to meet accessibility guidelines, and to lobby the college to install more wireless hotspots. In the absence of the proposer (who had left), I proposed this motion instead. There was general agreement with the motion, however the M&C officer mandated to carry out the changes was unsure as to whether she could fulfil them within the timeframe specified, and so proposed replacing the deadlines with ‘as soon as possible’, which PASSED (although I opposed it). The substantive was then PASSED.
The forth motion proposed reforming the Honours system, making them more open, and category based. This PASSED fairly uncontroversially, with a couple of parts removed.
The final motion was the one that most people had been waiting for – ‘media reform’. The proposer was again absent, which saved time as it meant that I could propse the motion instead, accepting immediately my own amendment. I gave a speech in favour of the motion, and then there was discussion from the floor. Most people were in favour, agreeing that Rare FM had massively improved and that an FM license would be a good event for the whole of the Union. There were some reservations over the finances though. A procedural motion from the editor of Pi Magazine successfully removed all references to Pi Magazine, on the basis that they were happening anyway (I thought that they may as well stay in in that case). I then summed-up, urging people to vote for the motion. The vote was then cast, and the motion was PASSED with a massive 22-1 majority. The policy to fund Rare FM’s FM license still has to be agreed by Finance Committee, but they should now be able to give us the money, hooray! Not only that, but they now have to put a ‘prominent, permanent link’ to us on the UCL Union website, and Rare FM is now officially ‘great’ in the policy of the Union…
The no-smoking motion was withdrawn (presumably by the proposer), to be put to the AGM instead… There will also soon be an NUS-affiliation referendum, with Union officers free to support either campaign as they see fit.
Oli said:
Frankie,
You know, as does everyone else at UCL, how shockingly, disgracefully and shamefully awful Pi Magazine is. I am genuinely not exaggerating when I say it’s probably the worst student newspaper/magazine I have ever read.
You know, and I know, that the problem with this is not primarily the people involved, but the structure. There’s a paradox here. The magazine needs a full-time sabb to run it, because of the amount of work running a paper involves. I know this, because I’ve been closely involved with London Student for the past three years. And yet, the current status, with the union officer in charge of the magazine, also being in charge of making the union look as good as possible, actually makes matters worse. We need a non-exec Pi sabbatical editor. Urgently. The current situation is a disgrace.
Onto the most harmful part of your amendment though, the status of Pi as a society. What is the purpose of a student newspaper? Is it to serve its readers, or is it to serve its writers?
The primary purpose has to be to serve the readers. If it happens to serve the writers then great (more on this later), but it can’t be the primary concern. With Pi as a society though, it is set up in order to help its members do what they want (train as journalists/photographers/whatever), and the result is a magazine which no one bothers to read. If it was set up with the express purpose of serving its readers (like London Student), it would have the obligation to make it readable, good, worthwhile, regular, etc. Which, coincidentally, actually means it’s better for the writers too.
Because of the timing of this (during the standing orders review), unless standing orders committee show a great deal of courage, I’m very sorry to say that your amendment has single handedly screwed media at UCL for another five years. I’m really sorry to say this, I know all you do for the union, and I know that you are one of the few people I broadly agree with on union reform. But Pi will continue to be completely fucked until the next sabb shakeup now. I’m at a complete loss as to what you were thinking – enlighten me, please!
On to the societies motion (and it wasn’t called “The Big Societies Motion”, it was called “Empowering Clubs and Societies”, but was submitted in a word doc with “the_big_societies_motion.doc” filename, which Victoria clearly thought would be funny to put on the agenda), what can I say? The sabbs misled council, and sabotaged my motion. A majority of non-sabb officers of council voted for. And that’s in spite of most people not seeing the appendices that proved my points, and in spite of the sabbs publicly calling my motion illegal. (On a side note, it wouldn’t have passed SOC if it were illegal).
For the record, “audit” isn’t a reason to block bank accounts for societies, as bank accounts are… auditable. Obviously. Almost every other SU in the country has understood this, but the sabbs chose to mislead council instead, because they didn’t want to do the work of changing regulations that screw over UCL’s clubs and societies on a daily basis.
Because of this dishonest and underhand opposition to my motion, which was merely establishing at UCL what has good practice at almost every other SU in the country for years, I tendered my resignation from Union executive this week.
I will be resubmitting my societies motion to the AGM however, where I am confident it will pass.